Europol mapped a criminal network by analyzing encrypted comms – and then seized an entire hotel while busting a multi-million euro laundering ring

• Messages obtained from a cracked E2EE service used to take down a criminal gang
• Sky ECC service is still providing information, four years after being shut down
• A hotel, property, cash, and vehicles were seized in the operation

Europol has conducted several raids against a prolific organized crime network involved in the trafficking of cocaine and laundered money.

The raids led to the arrest of 10 suspects and the seizure of an entire tourist hotel, as well as numerous other real estate sites and over €100,000 ($116,106) in cash.

But the secret to the success of the operation stemmed from analyzing encrypted communications from a chat network that shut down over four years ago.

Communication network analysis

The encrypted communications network in question is the Sky ECC network operated by Sky Global.

The network was shut down by law enforcement in 2021 due to the platform’s use by international criminal organizations to facilitate drug trafficking. Indictments and arrest warrants were issued to Sky Global’s CEO, Jean-François Eap, and a former distributor, Thomas Herdman.

Alongside the seizure of the website, law enforcement also confiscated a trove of hundreds of millions of messages sent between thousands of criminals using the Sky ECC app, which protected its messages with 512-bit elliptic-curve cryptography. It is these messages that are still being used by Europol in Operation Sky ECC, and Operational Task Force LIMIT.

Europol has launched numerous subsequent crackdowns on criminal organizations across Europe using metadata analysis from the message trove.

In this particular Europol operation, led by the Albanian SPAK, investigators from Albania, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands used communication data to identify the location of multi-ton deliveries of cocaine from South America to ports in the EU, for which one target of the operation received upwards of $40 million. The delivery ports included major hubs such as Antwerp and Rotterdam.

Included in the suspects arrested was the leader of the criminal organization, who was also wanted in Italy for murder, deprivation of liberty, attempted hiding of a corpse, threats, illegal possession of explosives and ammunition as well as obstruction of justice.

This operation, and the case of Sky ECC, highlights the thin line between using encrypted communications to ensure data privacy and prevent corporate or governmental overreach, and abusing data privacy to operate an international criminal ring responsible for drugs trafficking and laundering hundreds of millions of euros.

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